The clarion. [volume] (Jackson, Miss.) 1883-1888, 1887-11-09

nata, dream ingenious but faulty, for
all melody descends from heaven, and
only discords ascend from hell. All
hatreds, feuds, controversies backbitings
and revenges are the devils sonata, are
diabolic fugue, are demoniac phantasy,
are grand march of doom, are allegro of
perdition.
But il in this world things in general
are out of tune to our frail ear, how much
more so to ears angelic and deific. 1t
takes skilled artist fully TO appreciate
disagreement of sound. Many have no
capacity TO detect defect Of musical
execution, and, though there were in one
bar as many offenses against harmony as
could crowd in between the lower F of
the bass and the higher g of the soprano,
it would give them no discomfort, while
on the forehead of the educated artist
beads Of perspiration would stand out as
a result of the narrowing dissonance.
While an amateur was performing ON
piano and had just struck the wrong
| chord, John Sebastian Bach, the i'm
mortal composer, entered the room, and
| the amateur rose in embarrassment, and
Bach rushed past the host, who stepped
| forward TO greet him, and before the
| keyboard had stopped vibrating put his
adroit hand upon the keys and changed
the painful inharmony into glorious
cadence Then Bach turned and gave
| salutation to the host who had invited
| him.
But the worst of all discords is moral
| discord. If society and the world are
painfully discordant to imperfect man,
! what must they be to a perfect God?
30 hot ufv "a
to me that sin is getting out of harmony
with God, a disagreement with his holi-
ness, with his purity, with his love,
| with his commands, our will clashlng
| with his will, the finite dashing against
| the infinite, the frail against the puissant,
| the created against the creator. If
| thousand musicians, with flute, and
cornet-a- piston, and trumpet, and violon-
| cello. and hautboys, and trombone, and
all the winged and stringed instruments
| that ever gathered in Dusseldorf jubilee
should resolve that they would play out
| of tune, and put concord to the rack, and
make the place wild with shrieking, and
| grating, and rasping sounds, they could
not make such pandemonium as that
| which RACES in sinful soul when God
listens to the play of its thoughts, pas
sions and emotions-all discord, lifelong
discord maddening discord. The world
pays more for discord than it does for
consonance. High prices have been
paid for music. One man gave 1925 to
hear the Swedish songstress in New
York, and another 1925 TO hear her in
Boston, and another $3.50 to hear her in
Providence. Fabulous prices have been
paid for sweet sounds, but far more has
been paid for discord. The Crimean war
cost 81, 700, 900, 600, and our American
civil war over 50, 500, 900, 900, and the
war debts of professed Christian nations
are about $15, 900, 100000 The world
pays for this red ticket, which admits it
to the saturnalia of broken bones, and
death agonies, and destroyed cities, and
plowed graves, and crushed hearts, any
amount of money Satan asks. Discord!
Discord
| But have to tell you that the song
that the morning stars sang together, at
the LAYING of the worlds corner stone, is
to be resumed again. Mozart's greatest
overture was composed one night when
he was several times oyerpowered with
sleep, and artists say they can tell the
places in the music where he was falling
asleep, and the places where he awak-
ened. So the overture of the morning
stars, spoken of in my text, has been
asleep, but it will awaken and be more
grandly rendered by the evening stars OF
the worlds existence than by the morn
ing stars, and the vespers will be sweeter
than the mathis. The work of all good
men and women, and of all good
churches, and all reform associations is
to bring the race back to the original
harmony. The rebelious heart to be
attuned, social life to be attuned, CON-
mercial ethics TO be attuned, interna-
tionality to be attuned, hemispheres to
be attuned. But by what force and in
what way?
In olden time the choristers had tun-
ing fork with two prongs, and they
would strike it on the back of pew or
music rack, and put it to the ear, and
then start the tune and all the other
voices would join. In modern orchestra
the leader has a complete instrument,
! rightly attuned, and he sounds that, and
all the other performers turn the keys of
their instruments to make them CORE
spond, and sound the bow over the
string and listen, and sound out over
again, until all the keys are screwed to
concert pitch and the discords melt into
one great symphony, and the curtain
hoists end the baton taps, and audiences
are raptured with Schumann' s paradise
and the PERI" or Rossini's "Stabat
Mater" or Bach's ''Magniicat'' in d,
or Gounod's Redemption.
Now, our world can never be attuned
by an imperfect instrument. Even a
Cremona would not do. Heaven has or
dained the only instrument, and it is
made out of the wood of the cross, and
the voices that accompany it are i'm
ported voices, cantatrices of the first
Christmas night, when heaven serenaded
the earth with: ''Glory to God in the
highest and on earth peace, good will to
men," Lest we start too far off and get
lost In generalities, we had better begin
with ourselves, get our own hearts and
life in harmony with the eternal Christ.
Oh, for his almighty spirit to attune us,
to chord our will with His will. to modu-
late our life with His life and bring us
into unison with all that is pure and self
sacrificing and heavenly. The strings of
our nature are all broken and twisted,
and the bow is so slack it cannot evoke
anything mellifiuous. The instrument
made for heaven to play on has been
roughly twanged and struck by infiu-
ences worldly and demoniac. o master
hand of Christ, restore this split and frac-
tured and despoiled and unstrung nature
until first it shall wall out for our sin and
then trill with divine pardon.
The whole world must also be attuned
by the same power. A few days ago /
was in the Fairbanks weighing scale
mandatory of Vermont. Six hundred
hands, and they have never had strike.
Complete harmony between labor and
capital; the operatives of scores of years
in their beautiful homes, near by the
mansions of the manufacturers, whose
invention and Christian behavior made
the great enterprise. So, all the world
over, labor and capital will be brought
into euphony. You may have heard
what is called the Anvil Chorus, COM
posed by Verdi, tune played by ham
mers, great and small, now with mighty
stroke, and now with heavy stroke, beat
ing great iron anvil. That is what the
world has got to come to-anvil chorus,
yardstick chorus, shuttle chorus, trowel
chorus, crowbar chorus, pickax chorus,
gold mine chorus, rail track chorus. loco
motive chorus. 1t can be done and it will
be done. So all social life will be at
tuned by the Gospel harp. There will be
as many classes in society as now, but
the classes viii not be regulated by birth,
or wealth, or accident, but by the scale
of virtue and benevolence, and people